Cast Your Soul to the Sea
by starfishstar
Summary: On a boat leaving England, Remus is not as alone as he thinks. (A sequel, of sorts, to "Skellig, Azkaban, Albion, Éire.")


**Note:** While writing "Skellig, Azkaban, Albion, Éire," which was initially inspired by a Loreena McKennitt song, I also listened to a lot of Loreena McKennitt, to be in the right atmosphere for the writing. Literally moments after finishing tweaking the last few words of that story, I heard the lyrics of the song I had currently playing – and this story happened.

This follows on directly from the end of "Skellig, Azkaban, Albion, Éire."

. . . . .

_Cast your eyes on the ocean_  
><em>Cast your soul to the sea<em>  
><em>When the dark night seems endless<em>  
><em>Please remember me<em>

_–Loreena McKennitt, Dante's Prayer_

_._

Watching Dover disappear into the fog behind the ferry rail, Remus felt some constriction deep in his chest ease, just a fraction, for the first time since the news had reached him.

Today he was leaving behind the land of his birth for what he hoped would be many years or perhaps forever, and he was furiously, painfully, single-mindedly glad. _Good riddance, Britain_, he thought. _You are nothing but loss._

He leaned hard against the railing and struggled for a deep, cleansing breath that still wouldn't quite come. Maybe that was simply his life now. Maybe he would never again breathe entirely freely. He certainly couldn't imagine he would ever again laugh or joke. With whom, exactly, was he supposed to crack jokes? All his dearest friends were either dead or a heartless traitor whose name Remus hoped never to hear spoken again.

He sighed and closed his eyes, feeling the soft sting of salt air against his face. Dwelling on his anger was not going to help anyone, least of all himself.

With his eyes closed and the sea breeze cooling his cheeks, Remus found it was Lily's smile he saw in his mind's eye. Of all his friends, Lily was the one who would have put her arm around him and just let him be sad, or angry, or numb, or whatever it was he needed to be.

Those last cliffs of England were falling away behind him, faster and faster now. Surely he could let the bad fall away, too, and allow himself to remember the good?

Good things like Lily, with her ready smile and quicker tongue, and her uncomplicated friendship.

Lily at 19 had slung one arm companionably around his shoulders and said, "You know you're my favourite Marauder, Remus, don't you?"

"Er, what?" Remus had said, still finding himself frequently distracted by the sheer brilliance of the diamond twinkling from the ring finger of her other hand. "Come again?"

"I mean, obviously I'm in love with James. And I'm terribly fond of Sirius, even though he's a ridiculous human being and completely off his head, and of Peter, too, even though he must be off his head as well, to have got mixed up with you lot. But objectively, I've got to say you're the best one. You're like the conscience, Remus."

"I am not," Remus protested. "If anything, I'm the bad conscience. The guilty conscience. The part that thinks, _Ooh, probably shouldn't do that_, and then lets the rest of me do it anyway."

Lily just laughed and squeezed him again before letting go.

"That's my Professor Lupin," she said. "Always so reasonable, and far too modest. Listen, I want you to be the one to teach my kids, okay? Whenever James and I have kids. James will probably insist on Sirius being godfather, at least for the first one, and that's all fine and good, because Sirius will be loads of fun and a terrible influence in all the best ways, but you be the one to teach them morals and things, please, okay?"

"You want me around your kids?" Remus asked doubtfully.

Lily slapped him lightly on the side of the head. "Don't be daft, of course I do." Remus smiled despite himself. He rather liked the image – Sirius could go ahead and fly the poor sprog around on his blasted motorbike, but Remus would be the one to sit him down and teach him elementary Charms. He liked that idea very well, in fact.

Remus jerked his eyes open and gulped in a gasp of sea air. None of that would happen, now. Harry was safest under Lily's sister's roof, Dumbledore had explained, patient and implacable as always. It would be better if no one contacted him there.

Not that Remus would have asked for it to be otherwise. In so very many ways, Harry would be safer with anyone else but him.

Here he was, a coward on a boat, fleeing the home that had betrayed him, with no plans beyond the moment he would disembark in Calais. Where would he live? Where would he find work? More importantly, where would he transform, safely away from the danger of harming others, at the next full moon?

_I'm sorry_, he whispered to the Lily in his mind. _I know I've failed you. I know I've failed Harry. But I can't stay here._

He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to see that remembered version of her clearly again, and after a breathless moment, he did.

_Don't be ridiculous_, his imagined Lily said. _You're not a coward, Remus. You're the bravest man I know._

_Am not_, Remus protested.

_Are too._

He knew it was only his own imagination talking, but it really did sound like Lily. How impossible to believe he would never hear her teasing voice again.

Remus pressed his lips together and didn't cry.

He had been alone before. He could do it again.

_Remus_, said Lily's voice in his mind.

_What?_

_Open your eyes._

Unwillingly, he did. There was nothing but fog now, no land in either direction. Easy to imagine he might be anywhere.

He remembered Lily and James laughing on the pebble beach in Brighton, the first summer after they'd finished Hogwarts. Remembered James and Sirius whooping with cold and delight as they plunged into the frigid sea off the coast of Scotland one autumn.

_We're still here with you_, Lily's voice said. _You know we are._

Remus nodded. He kept his eyes open, staring sightlessly out into the fog. He looked down and watched the waves that slapped the boat's hull.

_Remember me, okay?_

"Yes," Remus said, his voice cracking brokenly against that single word. "Yes, I will."

_Now Remus –_

_Yes?_

_Breathe._

Shudderingly, haltingly, he did.

. . . . .

**Note: **And years later, the pieces come back together, in this story: "What I Have Taken Long Before."


End file.
